Optofluidic microvalve-on-a-chip with a surface plasmon-enhanced fiber optic microheater

We present an optofluidic microvalve utilizing an embedded, surface plasmon-enhanced fiber optic microheater. The fiber optic microheater is formed by depositing a titanium thin film on the roughened end-face of a silica optical fiber that serves as a waveguide to deliver laser light to the titanium film. The nanoscale roughness at the titanium-silica interface enables strong light absorption enhancement in the titanium film through excitation of localized surface plasmons as well as facilitates bubble nucleation. Our experimental results show that due to the unique design of the fiber optic heater, the threshold laser power required to generate a bubble is greatly reduced and the bubble growth rate is significantly increased. By using the microvalve, stable vapor bubble generation in the microchannel is demonstrated, which does not require complex optical focusing and alignment. The generated vapor bubble is shown to successfully block a liquid flow channel with a size of 125 μm × 125 μm and a flow rate of ∼10 μl/min at ∼120 mW laser power.     

South Korean Perspective on Learning Disabilities

In the context of the educational system and the nature of special education in South Korea, I describe policy, practice, and research about children with learning disabilities (LD). Recently, the study of LD has attracted professionals from multiple disciplines including general and special education, medicine, psychology, and social work. In Korea, the field of LD has developed rapidly over a brief period, but there are many problems to be solved in the near future. In particular, the field of LD in Korea lacks: (a) consensus about a conceptual definition, (b) a clear set of criteria for identifying students with LD, (c) lack of assessment instruments for identifying LD, and (d) general low understanding or misunderstanding of students with LD among teachers and parents.     

Universities and the humanities,then and now

Over the centuries, universities have functioned as gatekeepers and treasurers of received knowledge, while concomitantly furthering innovative contributions to society. Yet, when cultivating research ‘silos’, universities encourage scholars to explore in seeming isolation. Out of such tensions, universities have supported, and will continue to pursue, different kinds of, and approaches to, furthering knowledge and creativity. In the past, the humanities had been central to this mission. More recently, however, the efficient and global acceleration of consumer-oriented ‘knowledge production and consumption’ seems to form a critical factor upsetting the centrality of the humanities in university cultures. In this context, exploring the academic communities of the late middle ages proves to be a useful exercise. Forged in strong relationships with ecclesiastical and secular powers, mediaeval universities nonetheless share critical concerns with today’s academic institutions; thus, they too were constrained by the need to attract and exact excellence, to navigate relationships with their immediate environs, and to train professionals, who could ensure continuity in academic communities, the church, and the imperial courts. In other words, mediaeval universities also experienced polarising tensions that reveal consonances between then and now and that can gloss today’s acceleration driving the consumer model of knowledge production and consumption, while also encouraging scholars to form more explicit links to external constituencies.     

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in the context of globalization

The article reviews the social-educational theorization of the early Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky (1896–1934) in the light of the impact of communicative globalization in educational practice. Vygotsky proposed four “genetic domains” for investigating higher cognitive processes: the phylogenetic (humans undergoing natural evolution), the cultural-historical (social activity of humans), the ontogenetic (individual lifespan), and the microgenetic (immediate events). Vygotskian sociocultural theory is widely used in educational research, especially Vygotsky’s notion of mediated development via tools and signs. Since Vygotsky, communicative globalization has transformed educational potentials. Nevertheless, provided adjustments are made to Vygotsky’s genetic method to incorporate time-space compression, the mutual presence of the genetic domains, and the glonacal heuristic, Vygotskian theory continues to be useful in socially-situated investigations of educational development and transformation, and opens another way into the global, for example investigation of the role of global mediation in learning.     

Film scenes in interdisciplinary education: teaching the Internet of Things*

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining importance in education owing to its rapid development. This study addresses the importance of interdisciplinary education between technology and the humanities. The use of films as a teaching resource is suitable for interdisciplinary education because films represent creative forecasts and predictions on future human society, helping the public realize what could occur in the future. By utilizing films in instruction, students can be trained to understand the three key functions of IoT and acquire the ability to develop creative applications of IoT. An IoT teaching model using the films Minority Report (2002), Big Hero 6 (2014), Iron Man 3 (2013), Her (2013), and Transcendence (2014), all of which depict various applications of IoT that could be helpful in the teaching of the functions and concepts of IoT, is suggested; an interdisciplinary class is carried out for 15 weeks following the model. The effectiveness of the class is measured using quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and reflection journals. The findings show that students developed interdisciplinary capacity through education using films.